Not all of Northern Flowers’ releases are new recordings as
instanced here by the release of what I assume is the world
premiere performance in concert of Boris Tischenko’s (or is
it Tishchenko? – there seems to be some debate about the transliteration
of Tisenko and I’m no expert at all) Symphony No.6 from
1989. Without doubt Tischenko is one of Russia’s greatest living
symphonists and this is a big and raw work which is given a
compelling red-in-tooth-and-claw performance.

Given his training in Shostakovich’s post-graduate composition
class and the fact that he helped the older composer with elements
of his later scores it is all too easy to clump Tischenko’s
work together as some kind of post-Shostakovichian acolyte.
For sure in these big works and the way he handles the orchestra
the influence of his teacher can be heard but Tischenko has
gone way beyond simple musical hagiography to something truly
individual. Not that that means the listener is in for any kind
of easy ride. Just because a work is of clear significance and
stature does not always make it any easier to like. Although
titled a symphony, the dominance of the solo vocal element,
each movement is a setting of a poem, means the sense of it
to the listener – at least initially when musical themes and
motifs which give the work symphonic unity have not had time
to register – seem more like an extended song cycle. Shostakovich’s
own Symphony No.14 treats a very similar concept – as
well as meditating on death – so there is a precedent close
at hand. Although divided into five movements the work is dominated
by the opening Sentimental March which at 26:48 accounts
for very nearly half the work’s length. This movement was written
earlier than the others and apparently Tischenko directs in
the score that performances of individual movements are permissible.
Within the first few seconds of the work we are launched into
its world at full throttle in terms of piece, performance and
recording. The recording is typical of many early digital DDD
Russian/Soviet recordings – rather harsh, with a glassy glare
and very strange instrumental balances. Oddly, the solo line
– in this movement mainly given to soprano Valentina Yuzvenko
– is more naturally balanced and she sings with compellingly
idiomatic passion and commitment. Likewise the playing of the
USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra under Gennady Rozhdestvensky
has all the unbridled power and drama one could wish if lacking
much in finesse or the last degree of ensemble accuracy.

One major production/presentation problem is that the liner-notes
contains full English texts but set next to the original Russian
Cyrillic. So for someone like myself who cannot read the original
it is impossible within seconds to follow the text and relate
the music to it. This is compounded by a translation of the
poetry which I can only assume is painfully literal and results
in a text which verges on nonsense. Here are some quick examples;
“Diamonds of sputa, a horde (sic), a sooty bulb. Celtic bone
shining over the Scottish bagpipe” or “Pug glazing putty, tighten
the seams, cook starch paste in the kitchen, scrape that glass
with a razor bandmaster, where chalk has turned into marble”
or lastly “Of him leaving for ally abysses strangely resemble
the deceased one.” In fact no two sentences when put together
make any kind of coherent sense. Now, I am sure we have all
sat through Oratorios and Operas on occasion blissfully without
a clue about what is going on, but somehow here so tortured
and specific is the music I need the linkage to make sense of
what I’m hearing. Without it I find I really am struggling to
‘understand’ the message the music carries. The feeling is of
a very extended operatic scena. This is a huge sing for the
soprano – unrelentingly intense and wide ranging across the
entire vocal range. The ‘live’ nature of the performance is
underlined by the fact that Yuzvenko gets a clearly annoying
tickle in her throat at about the half-way point in the movement
which causes her to try and clear her throat ‘off-microphone’
in the few passages she doesn’t sing – which makes the clarity
and control of her singing all the more remarkable. For the
most part the large orchestra comments (illustrates?) rather
than accompanies and Tischenko’s orchestration is unfailingly
interesting and individual. Yet time and again my listening
notes reflect a frustration with ‘I wonder what’s happening
here’ – the music is clearly illustrative. As stand alone music
therefore I have to say I find this to be rather unrelenting,
in the manner of a twenty-five minute modern ‘mad-scene’. Extended
symphony/song-cycles are not exactly unknown – did Mahler’s
Das Lied Von Der Erde provide any kind of model? I do
wonder about the structural issue of placing the largest most
harrowing setting first. For Mahler, his similarly proportioned
extended movement Der Abschied provides a wonderfully
moving farewell quite literally and the preceding music culminates
in that extraordinary movement. Here, the music following Sentimental
March is in every sense lesser. In the later part of this
movement Tischenko creates a moment of musical theatre by introducing
the second voice of the contralto Elena Rubin ‘off-stage’. Listeners
will either warm to the Slavic vibrancy of Rubin’s voice or
not. It is a huge sound which in its lower registers does sound
baritonal. Again her connection and involvement with the work
is clear and undeniable.

Musically and materially the second movement continues the mood
and style of the first although as a whole it is much lighter
scored. After a dramatic gesture from the horns there is a dialogue
with impassioned violins before Rubin enters in her first solo
onstage song. Try about 00:50 into track 2 to see if you will
respond to her unique sound. Without access to a score I did
find myself wondering whether all of the close dense dissonances
in the string writing were as composed or playing ‘in the cracks’.
The third movement seems to serve the function of the symphony’s
Scherzo with the strings sharing the bulk of it with
the percussion – great explosive airbursts from the timps leading
the way. Again the playing is all one could wish for in terms
of commitment but the ensemble suffers. Soprano Yuzvenko sings
this movement and in its scurrying grim drama it is hard not
to hear some of the influence of Shostakovich. However, having
listened to this work several times I do feel the similarity
is superficial; just that and no more – Tischenko is his own
man. Yes there are occasional echoes – more in orchestrational
touches rather than anything else – but the big defining moments
of the work are intensely individual. Try from about 3:00 into
track 3 where the full orchestra is unleashed in this movement
for the first time. As before, the text translations do little
to throw any kind of insight on matters. I quickly stopped trying
to correlate what I read with what I heard, it was simply too
confusing and frustrating.

The fourth movement is entrusted to the contralto once again
– “with blue eyes and hot frontal bone, you were lured by universal
juvenating anger [? – my question mark]” reads the opening lines.
Personally I found this the least engaging movement because
it is hard to see how this is developing musically/emotionally
on the world of the first and third movements – it feels like
more of the implacably desolate same. In that context the final
movement comes as an intriguing surprise. Most clearly this
is a song with an orchestral accompaniment and the pawky pizzicato
accompaniment has a popular song style to it mirrored by the
flowing diatonically harmonised duet for the singers. Perhaps
this is the moment where Shostakovich’s influence is most clearly
felt in the strange lop-sided dance and woodwind and horn interjections.
This is by far the least violent movement even when the actual
dynamic increases for the central climax. Even here, where the
musical is less overtly complex it has to be said that the performance
from the strings of the orchestra is far from polished which
is surprising how well they sound on other contemporaneous recordings.
The ending is rather effective – the contralto walks offstage
singing in dialogue with the soprano; “Are you still alive?”
.. “I’m still alive” … “Are you still here?” on a cruelly high
exposed B natural finally replying “I am …” It’s a powerful
ending to a demanding work for both performers and listeners.

For collectors of Tischenko’s work this will be a welcome and
powerful addition to their library. I do not know enough of
his music to say how typical and/or a good starting point for
a collection this represents. What is clear is that this is
an important and significant work by a strongly individual composer.
Both the performance and recording add dramatic atmosphere and
authenticity to proceedings at the same time as compromising
one’s ability to judge the work wholly objectively. This does
not make for a comfortable listen on any level but then should
a work meditating on death ever be a comfortable listen? – probably
not.

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